W-H-A-M!
Something happens to come along to humble you and remind you how small you are in the scheme of things, how ignorant your worldliness makes you about the things closest to home. Because I suppose when you spend your life focusing. worrying and caring about other peoples problems you rarely make the time to address your own. Ha, like all "grown-ups" there are things rattling in the back of my closet.
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| Me (the apparently busty blonde) and some hero guy trying to tell me what's up. Figures. |
I'll be sitting next to my Oma's bedside in a few short hours, ignoring the prickle on the back of my neck from my uncles spiteful gaze, and looking at the shell of a woman who used to be the rock in my young life. Oma is on hospice care, and my family, after a series of texts and phone calls discovered that she's in critical condition...She may not even make it through the night.
It's fair to say that going down to sit at her deathbed is the least appealing thing I could possibly think of right now. Oma has always been a strong woman and it's been incredibly difficult to watch her fade under the throws of dementia and old age. Seeing her in my mind, I see a vivacious grandmother filling up my 101 Dalmatians cup with orange soda and shrieking curses in Dutch-English to the neighbors cat who always stalked birds at her numerous bird feeders. It used to make me laugh with glee. But now, as I imagine she'll look today having visited her a month ago, as emaciated as a concentration camp victim, her body seeming to shrivel up into itself, I'm selfish in my wishes to turn away. To forget. To block out her last few moments, the only time of frailty in her life of incredible strength.
But, I'm going anyway. Something Ryan said about "family" and "love" and "togetherness" reminded me, as I grabbed tissues from the box, that in a way I really didn't have a choice in the matter. That no matter what kind of shit we've put each other through in this crazy family of ours (and trust me, our family feeds the makings of an incredible soap opera), there's obligation to support those who's legacy depends on me to pass on the stories of their lives.
So, no. I don't want to see my Oma die. Death freaks me out. Not for me per se; I don't really fear death personally. It's natural and inevitable, and who am I to say that I know what will happen when we die. I am overwhelmingly a chipper agnostic. We'll see right? But I think it's always harder to be the one getting left behind because it reminds us of how quickly we live, and how many things in life we still wish to do and see. Death gives life perspective that we lose amongst our stacks of books and to-do lists and workout schedules, jobs, and relationships. And that reminds us of our worst fears - of having lived an unfulfilled life.
So, when will I actually "grow up"?
If knowledge and life experience is what constitutes the coming-of-age, and we learn tough and joyous lessons throughout our whole lives, perhaps then the moment before death is the act of ultimate maturation. Of having lived and died and left a legacy to those that loved you and will remember you.
How foolish am I to have thought otherwise.
